Life as a Leach

One of the "must dos" of Disney World is a character meal.  Yes, they are ridiculously overpriced.  Yes, the food is usually mediocre at best.  Yes, children often scream in terror at the sight of their "favorite" Disney character up close and personal.  But it's the experience ...or something like that.  :) We had done two character meals last time we were in Disney World, but this time we just did one that Abby chose (Caleb chose a different kind of meal, which I'll share in another post).  We visited Akershus in Epcot's Norway for a late breakfast/early lunch.  The food was surprisingly pretty good (it's hard to ruin breakfast food), but we felt very rushed.  Nevertheless, Abby got to visit her princesses and there were no characters with heads for her to panic over. Snow White was definitely Abby's favorite.  She was very personable and spent much more time with her than any of the other princesses. Caleb enjo...

We had another special dinner Thursday night.  There's a great character dinner with the Cinderella characters at the beautiful Grand Floridian.  It's about as close as we will ever get to staying at a place like that!!! Now, the first character dinner with Mickey didn't go so well.     Abby was less than thrilled with costumed characters coming up to shake her hand.  But princesses are another story!!  We already knew she was fine with meeting princesses, since she'd done great with Anna, Elsa, and Ariel.  And she was thrilled about meeting Cinderella! The princess even dressed up like Cinderella! We got pictures taken outside of the dining room.  All of the photographers are so nice about taking pictures with your camera in addition to doing the professional ones! Abby was beside herself when she saw Cinderella head our way!!  She climbed out of her seat and went around, not even waiting until Cinderella came to her!...

On Monday and Tuesday, we visited The Magic Kingdom. The girls got to meet several princesses while we were there:  Ariel, Belle, Anna, Elsa, and Cinderella!  I have lots to share about the Cinderella dinner and Anna and Elsa deserve a post of their own, so here are a few pictures of the others (and the castle!) Belle has story time where the kids get to be in the little play and tell the story.  Anna, Lucy, and Sara were all in it, but I couldn't quite convince Abby of how cute the pictures would be much fun it would be.  We still got pictures with Belle though! Note the humongous crowds of people.  This was taken just as we walked in right after the gate was opened that morning.  The crowds were insane!!  Have I mentioned that I really don't like crowds?!  Eek!